ARUNA SAIRAM is one of the best voices to emerge from the south Indian musical tradition. Trained since childhood by her mother, Rajalakshmi, and by T. Brinda, she has performed all over India, including the Presidential Palace in New Delhi. Every year as a matter of course she gives several recitals during the celebrated Madras Music Festival in December.

Aruna tours frequently in Europe, participating in major festivals, making recordings, teaching workshops, and appearing on TV. In autumn, 1999, she presented opening concerts of the season at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris, for the Opera House of Lyons, and - for Radio France - a live concert broadcast all over the country.

Steeped in her own musical tradition, Aruna brings richness to her collaborations with other artists:

She has given several concerts with the renowned medieval singer, Dominique Vellard, with whom she will perform at the Festival of Sacred Music in Fez, in June 2000. Their CD together was recorded in June, 1999.

For several years she has toured in Germany with Christian Bollmann and Michael Reimann, who fuse European overtone music and a range of international instruments with her vocal improvisations. Their CD - ARUNA Thousand Names of the Divine Mother - was recorded in the crypt of a Benedictine monastery.

In May, 1999, they were joined by Rajika Puri, whose dancing added another facet to their concerts in churches at Koln, Aachen, & Darmstadt, among other places.

The success of this collaboration has led to her current work with Rajika, in which the dancer improvises Bharata Natyam based movement during her recitals, giving a visual dimension to the melodic, rhythmic, and semantic aspects of her music.
Rajika joins her tour of Spain June-July, 2000.

Introduced to Flamenco by Rajika, to whom she gave musical guidance for the Indian component of the show, Flamenco Natyam, Aruna hopes to be able to interact with singers and guitarists while she is in Spain.